{"data":{"id":111654,"api_model":"artworks","api_link":"https:\/\/api.artic.edu\/api\/v1\/artworks\/111654","is_boosted":true,"title":"The Policeman","alt_titles":null,"thumbnail":{"lqip":"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBAAFAPQAAF9HL39XJH9YI3NTLXxTMX1cM3lfQXNnVIBNJoFjQIJlQI5yTYlwUoxzUo93WZN9ZJB8Zp2CXqaNbqaPdQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAEAAUAAAURIAAVxpAoDzI1DCEJyxEFTggAOw==","width":6107,"height":7664,"alt_text":"Abstract shapes compose a mustached man and rearing horse against brown background."},"main_reference_number":"1991.1499","has_not_been_viewed_much":false,"boost_rank":null,"date_start":1925,"date_end":1925,"date_display":"1925","date_qualifier_title":"","date_qualifier_id":null,"artist_display":"Joan Mir\u00f3\nSpanish, 1893\u20131983","place_of_origin":"Spain","description":"<p>Soon after Joan Mir\u00f3 moved to Paris from his native Barcelona in 1920, he met a group of avant-garde painters and writers who advocated merging the everyday rational world with that of dreams and the unconscious in order to produce an absolute reality, or surreality. To release images of this higher realm, the Surrealists embraced automatism, a spontaneous working method much like free association. Mir\u00f3 experimented with automatism: \u201cEven a few casual wipes in cleaning my brush,\u201d he said, \u201cmay suggest the beginning of a picture.\u201d Between 1925 and 1927, his experiments unleashed a revolutionary series of works called the \u201cdream paintings,\u201d which straddle abstraction and representation in freely moving, calligraphic compositions. In <em>The Policeman<\/em>, a large canvas from this group, two biomorphic shapes spring to life as a policeman and a horse, their forms defined by thinly applied white paint against a neutral ocher ground. The form on the left has sprouted five buds that act as fingers, and both forms extrude curves that suggest torsos or mouths. With sketch-like dots and squiggles added to their heads to make eyes and a mustache, Mir\u00f3\u2019s shapes come to life in a liquid space as animated equivalents of a policeman and his horse.<\/p>\n","short_description":"After moving to Paris in 1920, Joan Mir\u00f3 met a group of avant-garde artists who advocated merging the everyday world with dreams and the unconscious to produce an absolute reality, or surreality. In <em>The Policeman<\/em>, Mir\u00f3 derives an image of a mustachioed policeman and his horse from seemingly unplanned stains on the canvas and graffiti-like strokes and squiggles, as if composing without conscious intention.","dimensions":"248 \u00d7 194.9 cm (97 5\/8 \u00d7 76 3\/4 in.)","dimensions_detail":[{"depth":null,"width":194,"height":248,"diameter":null,"clarification":null}],"medium_display":"Oil on canvas","inscriptions":"signed and dated lower left: Mir\u00f3.\/1925.\nsigned and dated on verso: Joan Mir\u00f3.\/1925.","credit_line":"Bequest of Claire Zeisler","catalogue_display":null,"publication_history":"Jacques Dupin, \u201cJoan Mir\u00f3,\u201d Quadrum I (May 1956), pp. 95-106, ill. opp. p. 98.\n\nRen\u00e9 Gaff\u00e9, \u201cMir\u00f3 au Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles.\u201d Prisme des Arts, no. 1(March 1956). \n\nJacques Dupin, Joan Mir\u00f3. Life and Work (New York, 1961), p. 510 (ill.).\n\nJacques Dupin, Joan Mir\u00f3: Life and Work (New York, 1962), fig. 121.\n\nRen\u00e9 Gaff\u00e9, La verticale: R\u00e9flexions d'un collectionneur (Bruxelles, 1963). .\n\nWilliam Rubin, Dada, Surrealism, and their Heritage (New York, 1968), fig. 85. \n\nCharles Stuckey, French Painting (Southport, 1991), 267. \n\nAlan Artner, \u201cArt Institute Inherits Five Surrealist Paintings,\u201d Chicago Tribune, Oct. 11, 1991, Section D, A5 (ill.).\n\nPere Gimferrer, The Roots of Mir\u00f3 (Barcelona, 1993), p. 342 (ill.).  \n\nCharles Stuckey, \u201cSelected Recent Acquisitions of Twentieth-Century Art at The Art Institute of Chicago,\u201d Burlington Magazine (October 1993), pp.  725-28 (ill.).\n\nCarolyn Lanchner, Joan Miro (New York, 1993), pp. 132 (ill.), 380 (ill.), 381, as The Policeman (Figure and Horse). \n\nJacques Dupin and Ariane Lelong-Mainaud, Joan Mir\u00f3. Catalogue Raisonn\u00e9. Paintings (Argenton-sur-Creuse, 1999), pp. 112\u201313 (ill.), no. 127, as Le Gendarme, The Policeman.   \n\nJames Rondeau, Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), 122 (color ill.).","exhibition_history":"Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Joan Miro, January\u2013February 1956, n.p. (ill.), no. 14; travelled to Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, February\u2013March, 1956.\n\nNew York, Museum of Modern Art, Dada, Surrealism and Their Heritage, March 27\u2013June 9, 1968, no. 85; traveled to Los Angeles County Museum of Art, July 16\u2013September 8, 1968, and Art Institute, October 19\u2013December 8, 1968. \n\nNew York, Museum of Modern Art, Joan Miro, October 17, 1993\u2013January 11, 1994, no 44.","provenance_text":"Jacques Viot (Galerie Pierre), Paris, acquired directly from artist, late October\u2013early November 1925 [Lanchner 1993]. Ren\u00e9 Gaff\u00e9, Brussels, by June 1928\u2013at least 1962 [Lanchner 1993]; sold  to Norman Granz, Galerie Verve, Breganzona, Switzerland, around 1962\u2013to at least April 1963 [Lanchner 1993]; sold to Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago, April 1963 [letter April 12, 2001 from Richard Feigen and Co.]; sold to Claire Zeisler, Chicago, 27 April 1963\u201399 [letter listed above]; bequeathed to the Art Institite, 1999.","edition":null,"publishing_verification_level":"Web Cataloged","internal_department_id":246,"fiscal_year":1992,"fiscal_year_deaccession":null,"is_public_domain":false,"is_zoomable":true,"max_zoom_window_size":1280,"copyright_notice":"\u00a9 2018 Successi\u00f3 Mir\u00f3 \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ ADAGP, Paris","has_multimedia_resources":false,"has_educational_resources":false,"has_advanced_imaging":false,"colorfulness":43.0442,"color":{"h":213,"l":42,"s":73,"percentage":0.002242418942161288,"population":20},"latitude":41.8805559890454,"longitude":-87.6218665960522,"latlon":"41.880555989045,-87.621866596052","is_on_view":true,"on_loan_display":null,"gallery_title":"Gallery 398","gallery_id":25479,"nomisma_id":null,"artwork_type_title":"Painting","artwork_type_id":1,"department_title":"Modern Art","department_id":"PC-11","artist_id":32048,"artist_title":"Joan Mir\u00f3","alt_artist_ids":[],"artist_ids":[32048],"artist_titles":["Joan Mir\u00f3"],"category_ids":["PC-11","PC-831"],"category_titles":["Modern Art","Essentials"],"term_titles":["painting","automatism","oil paint (paint)","oil painting","Modernism","animals","figures (representations)","canvas","painting (image making)","Surrealism Highlights"],"style_id":"TM-5981","style_title":"Modernism","alt_style_ids":[],"style_ids":["TM-5981"],"style_titles":["Modernism"],"classification_id":"TM-9","classification_title":"painting","alt_classification_ids":["TM-14412"],"classification_ids":["TM-9","TM-14412"],"classification_titles":["painting","Surrealism Highlights"],"subject_id":"TM-12252","alt_subject_ids":["TM-12218","TM-12283"],"subject_ids":["TM-12252","TM-12218","TM-12283"],"subject_titles":["automatism","animals","figures (representations)"],"material_id":"TM-2451","alt_material_ids":["TM-3124"],"material_ids":["TM-2451","TM-3124"],"material_titles":["oil paint (paint)","canvas"],"technique_id":"TM-4273","alt_technique_ids":["TM-3891"],"technique_ids":["TM-4273","TM-3891"],"technique_titles":["oil painting","painting (image making)"],"theme_titles":["Essentials"],"image_id":"10dd1877-fbdd-5a2d-adf9-b62b24c89ba9","alt_image_ids":[],"document_ids":[],"sound_ids":[],"video_ids":[],"text_ids":[],"section_ids":[],"section_titles":[],"site_ids":[],"suggest_autocomplete_boosted":"The Policeman","suggest_autocomplete_all":[{"input":["1991.1499"],"contexts":{"groupings":["accession"]}},{"input":["The Policeman"],"weight":11487,"contexts":{"groupings":["title"]}}],"source_updated_at":"2026-08-25T15:34:28-05:00","updated_at":"2026-09-02T15:22:05-05:00","timestamp":"2026-09-07T05:06:11-05:00"},"info":{"license_text":"The `description` field in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Generic License (CC-By) and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu. All other data in this response is licensed under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) 1.0 designation and the Terms and Conditions of artic.edu.","license_links":["https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/publicdomain\/zero\/1.0\/","https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/terms"],"version":"1.15"},"config":{"iiif_url":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2","website_url":"http:\/\/www.artic.edu"}}